Alexandra Wolfe's Blog, page 39

Tree Project – Day 104

Tree Project – image 104

Finally, a full day of clear blue skies after what seems like weeks of drab weather. Perfect for a Sunday. Not breeze but still, quite cold. Do the trees whether the sun is out or not? I wonder …

Tree Project – Day 103

Tree Project – iamge 103

One hundred and three days … and the best weather is well behind us. We’ve entered limbo time, winter, well, in less than a week. And today, the skies are not as dark, not so heavy, not so overcast and, we are told, we’ll see sunshine. It’s 5 degrees, but feels more like 1, with the stiff breeze blowing out of the north.

In Correspondence With

10 St James’s Sq, London

November 26, 1852

Dear Mister Turing,

You arrived in a fluster on my doorstep yesterday without so much as a gentlemen’s calling card nor, may I say, wearing anything approaching gentlemen’s attire. And an uncovered head in public, Mr. Turing? Tut-tut. But let us set aside how scruffily dressed you were. You then proceeded to badger and cajole my butler, Samson, physically and forcibly gain entrance to my home, and chaotically open and slam nigh on every room door on the premise instead of waiting, as Mr. Samson suggested you do, in the hallway. As any proper person might.

But, as I have found out to your detriment, you are neither polite nor a gentleman, Mr. Turning. What you are, I have yet to determine. Forcible? Most certainly. Irascible? Without question, and quite possibly, incoherent to a point of madness. You most certainly are in need of either a calming tonic or a dose of Madam Pompadour’s French Gin. Either way, it is what I finally discerned after deciphering the gibbering babbles emanating from you that has me intrigued.

You have confounded me, Mister Turing. Something only one other man, except maybe my recalcitrant father, has managed to do. And even then, the venerable Mister Babbage’s ravings have solidified themselves into some semblance of reality upon my investigation into the mathematical probabilities of time, space, and relative dimension.

And while he has raved about his Analytical Engine for a day past too long, your ramblings about my part in the Improbability Drive are nothing short of a lunatic howling at the moon. And yet, I am at a loss in that I must believe in a small grain of truth, for were you not just here, in my home, a man displaced from the future. Or, so you would have me believe. And I am hard pressed to see how it could not be otherwise, and that only a person of such rabid belief could, indeed, be from beyond the years I now live in.

Indeed, the one moment you made perfect sense to me was with the words, ‘harmonic resonance’. It is at this juncture I am drawn to my own words written some time since where upon I state:

‘Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.’

You do pose me a quandary, Mr. Turning so much so, I am now most defiantly fixed upon a quest to discover my part in your future endeavours to create the very engine that brought you hence, to my doorstep. I do not, nor have I ever, professed to be a prophet of a coming age, but this night has seen me lie abed in a great wonder. My mind calculating and re-calculating not just possibilities, but probabilities.

And you, Mr. Turning, appear to be my proof.

I remain most sincerely,

The Hon. Augusta Ada King,

Countess of Lovelace

Footnote:

If you would like to follow along with the other side to this series, check out writing friend, Kenny Harrison’s ‘Turing’s Story‘.

404, Page Not Found

I’m sorry, but our team of highly trained space monkeys cannot seem to find what it is you are looking for. It could be because:

You need to take your spacesuit gloves off when typing in the link.
You need to drink decaffeinated coffee.
The recent sunspot activity fried your communications array.
The Earth’s polarity is in a state of quantum flux.
Aliens are about to invade and are jamming all frequencies.

Here are a few suggestions:

Try drinking less coffee.
Try showering to remove any excess solar radiation.
Try lining your Windows 8 with tinfoil.
Try investing in a “Tesla Coil” to discharge your excess static electricity.
Try sending a sub-coded message to Starfleet Command.
Try asking Yoda to translate.

Tree Project – Day 102

Tree Project – image 102

Another drab, cold, wet day, without a chance of parole to see the sunshine. I’m beginning to fear this is how our winter will unfold this season. I hope not. And I bet the trees are as fed up with this weather as I am.

Tree Project – Day 101

Tree Project – image 101

Another heavy, overcast day of rain, well, heavy drizzle I think would be more accurate. And, we are told, we’ll have rain on and off for the next 10 days or so. Oh, lovely! I’m waiting for the spring flowers to be confused and bloom because of the mild wet weather.

Too busy to retire

In response to a blog post on a friend’s website about retiring, I answered that yes, it might be easy for some to fall into the trap of sitting on the couch, surfing channels on the TV, and eking out a slow, lingering death by advert.

But …

No way, not me!

I sort of semi-retired a few years back, and took on only a few bespoke editing jobs through a dwindling handful of contacts. But, as those very same people took early (forced) retirements and or were handed a pink slip, those few jobs dried up. Dried up like my enthusiasm for publishing in general. So much so, I took the final step last year. I took the plunge and retired, and left the workforce behind.

I set up my own websites, started my own projects, but for me, for my benefit, and for my own personal enjoyment. Write for me. Create for me. This was my new mantra. And now, I play in my various sandboxes to my heart’s content.

I must stress, I am hugely grateful to the fact I can do this, and have a supportive partner who lets me dabble. But then, in return, they do get the benefits of home cooked meals, and a warm, inviting space to come home too each night.

So retirement? No, not yet, and not for a long time to come, I’m way too busy.

I’m just getting my second, or is that, third wind? And I’m not about to stop and look over my shoulder, and see what it is I’ve left behind. I’m off to make a map of the future …

Ciao Bella!

Tree Project – Day 100

Tree Project – image 100

Day 100 of my tree project in what I hope will be a year-long sojourn. I’ve documented my cluster of trees in late Summer through Fall, and now, moving into the long sleep of winter. A winter that is, usually by now, a white one. Another heavy, overcast day of thick cloud cover and cold. I hope the whole winter isn’t going to be this? I hope not.

Tree Project – Day 99

Tree Project – image 99

December is fast turning into a drab month with seemingly perpetual overcast skies, windy and intermittent rain. Neither one thing or another, with warmer than average temperatures. Drab is not how we normally describe the weather in these parts, especially in the run up to Christmas, and Winter.

Tree Project – Day 98

Tree Project – image 98

Another cold, heavy, overcast and blustery day. More winter than autumn and no, still no real snow despite the day of flurries we had.